Apocalypse Life/Issue 32
Issue 32 - Benjamin High Titans “You about ready?” Julius looked at Alice while he wore his jacket. She was scuffling through his bag, trying to muster all of the food she can find. “Oh, hey… you’re shirt—” she mutters, upon seeing the familiar color and logo; it happened to come from that night, when they visited her house. And that seemed to be all she can remember. She looks at the small stockpile of food she managed to gather, setting it on the coffee table in between them. “Let’s see here…” She doesn’t bother standing up, as she notices the seemingly meager size of their supplies. Aside for her two small bags of trail mix, a couple of canned sodas and bottled water, there were two granola bars, and an additional bottle. Extremely lacking. “Wow, so—this… this is it.” She stands up, folds her arms, and looks at him. Julius didn’t realize his complete lack of food until now. He thought he was holding the same amount as the coffee table’s just an afternoon ago; but it seems he was kidding himself. “Yep, we definitely need to do this.” They both pause, looking at their possible and only food for the coming months, hesitations arising for what will be their next ultimate decision. Alice, taking a moment, notices that he was already ready. He was pretty much wearing the same clothing he remembers him to be wearing. And surprisingly, he didn’t smell that bad. Or maybe she was just kidding herself too much. Julius, noticing her eyes on him, returns her look. There he gets a good look of her outfit, creating an overall impression of it. For the most part, it was the same; a shirt, jeans, and her brown boots. “Hold on a sec,” she says, turning around and zipping out of view to her right. She returns seconds later with a jacket and a messenger bag, its strap held by her left hand. She slips the ruby-red leather jacket on her arms, adjusting its sleeves. She then grabs her bag and swings its hanging strap open, taking out two leather gloves from it. Julius couldn’t help but watch her out of fascination. She notices him looking at her, as she slips the gloves on. “What?” She looked amazing, and ready; her ponytailed brown hair, wearing a stylish leather jacket, and gloves to go along with it. He opens his mouth to compliment her, but thinks twice, because of her curious expression. He’s been cheesy enough for one day. “You look good,” he says, escaping his mouth. Could’ve been worse. She gives him an unimpressed glare. “Okay,” she replies, following it up with a smirk. She fastens the straps of her gloves then vanishes again, this time much sooner. She reappears with an object on both her hands, holding it sideways. Julius assumes a puzzled expression as he scans her. “Is that…?” She lets the object drop onto the carpet, her leather-gloved right hand holding the yellow handle. “Yep,” she proudly says, nodding. A sledgehammer. Alice was out of her mind to be carrying a sledgehammer. Then again, he’s seen worse from her. Once there was a giant stuffed teddy bear that she badly wanted to buy, or… was it a prize from a carnival game? It was a random thought, a thought not important at the moment, so he had to forget about it for a second. “You…?” Julius points to her, walking closer. “Is that what you’ve been using lately?” She nods, swinging the hammer onto her left hand with almost no trouble. “You shoulda seen me the first time around. I could barely carry this.” Julius could notice a few marks of dirt and some darkened blood, mostly near or on the hammer’s metal head itself. “I mean, it’s still pretty heavy, but I feel really… awesome, with it.” A smile of pride starts to form in her face. Julius gives her a confused smirk. “You… you haven’t thrown your back out using that thing?” She gives him a ridiculous look. “No! Of course not. It was pretty heavy at first, but… I got used to it.” She starts shaking the hammer, as if getting a feel from it. “I mean, even Jen didn’t want me using it. But I don’t care. It’s a weapon, it hurts, and I love it.” Julius could really see her contentment with the heavy-looking object. Still, he can’t shake the feeling of her throwing her back out. But he knows her. Very stubborn, and has the reasons. He scans around the floor area, looking for his own items. He sees his bat resting against the wall, right next to his own bag. ---- It was a quiet, calm kind of night. The numerous trees that shaded the night sky complemented the street, dimly lit by orange. And even then, both Julius and Alice were walking in a hurry. They were headed for a convenience store Alice visited once. It had its own block, so it was hard to miss. Alice also assured him that there will be walkers there. Their walk continued to be silent, because they left with a task in mind. But there was so much to be said. “You’re still alive,” she says, after more prolonged silence. Julius glances at her. “Had a few close calls.” Even though it was only two weeks, each day was always different. He’d always see something worth holding onto. “And it’s easy to feed one person.” Like the apartment with light emanating from its windows. It was quickly swarmed from the entrance up. He could still hear their screams. He couldn’t usually count on being lucky. He only hid, searched for food, and hid some more. He looks at Alice, who seemed to have silenced down. He opens his mouth to say something, but the sight of her presence makes him hesitate. She was right there, next to her, living, walking with him. She’s alive, and he still can’t believe it. Alice takes notice and returns his stare with her own. “What?” He continues to pause, then concludes it with a smile. “N-nothing.” She looks at him weirdly for a good moment, then looks away. “If it wasn’t for Jen, I—I probably wouldn’t be standing here…” She swings the sledgehammer she’s been carrying onto her other hand, to have a closer look, as if her memories were there. “She kept me on my feet. Gave me so much advice. Saved me a few times, too.” Things like starting a fire, purifying water, strictly sticking to one area. Jen’s training pretty much rubbed off on her. “I… I was kind of nervous when she left my side. She was kinda like my—my…” She couldn’t think of a good word that summarizes it, until now. “… big sister.” The memory puts a smile on her face. She got scolded a few times by her. Mostly when it mattered. She looks at Julius, who has been looking ahead, at the distance, a calm expression in his eyes. “I think we’ll be okay.” He notices this, and turns to her. He faintly smirks, and looks away again. Just that look alone tells him that everything will be fine. Because she was right there, by his side. And he was there, right beside her. It felt like they can take on anything. ---- Everywhere they turned, Alice seemed to look more and more lost. They’ve only made a few turns in different streets, but it felt like they’ve been at it for hours now. The growing darkness of each street they trekked on as they got deeper didn’t help, either. “This is…” she curiously says, reading the street sign they were in. It wasn’t this one. She scans her surroundings, frustrated. Julius was starting to notice it. “Maybe we can… do this tomorrow morning, or—or something…” He, too, had a bad feeling about this. She looks at him briefly, and does yet another scan; the darkness of the streets, coupled by what looked like fog, made her feel uneasy. “We’ve made it this far,” she says, minding what seemed like moving shadows somewhere around her. She wanted to camp in that convenience store if she had to. “We’re walker food, if we don’t turn back—” Julius looks around, trying to piece together where they came from. His doubts were starting to make him as lost as she is. She hesitantly looks at the end of the street they were facing. “C’mon,” she urges, with a sigh, and some reluctance in her movement. She does a few pauses, looking back at Julius, then goes forward with it. The houses to their left and right shrouded in darkness made them think less of it. They sure looked like good shelters, but they didn’t feel like breaking in and maybe stirring some walkers while at it. Julius looks away, toward the next block, as they reach the end of the street. Just as Alice has suspected, there were walkers present. They were scattered, all over this road, which seemed to have a wall with leaves going over it. The two walkers closest to them don’t waste any time. Alice does a quick glance between the pair, then to Julius. “Watch my back,” she advises, preparing the sledgehammer on her hands. She does a few warm-up shrugs, blows some mist out of her mouth, and approaches them. Julius never saw her so eager like this before. He wasn’t worried, mostly at the confidence she was showing, but he was ready to back her up no matter what. In fact, his cautiousness made her follow her closely. Alice, feeling the lightness of her weapon in her hands, does a flawless upward-sideways swing at the walker to her right. She watches it plop down onto the cement first, before she takes down the other walker. She heaves her hammer, then does an almost similar swing, causing it to land on the same area. She could feel the weight of her hammer as if she never felt it before. She swore she felt her back stretch. She moves the grasp of her left hand to the top-half of the handle, admiring her work. Julius turns up to her side, and observes it with her before looking at what’s ahead of them. “Do you… hear that?” he asks. She looks at the scattered walkers standing on the sides of the streets; at least three were facing them, while the rest… had their backs turned. Now that he mentioned it, she was starting to hear something. Something buzzing, at the far distance ahead of her. “Y-yeah… what the hell is that…?” The wall to their right cuts off to an elongated fence that stretches toward the end of the road. The field of grass was reflecting some kind of bright light. ---- After passing through the three walkers from earlier, Julius and Alice hop over the fence. As her hunch says, there was a source for the landscape’s increased visibility in the night. They were both standing on the grass field of a building, with shiny field lights that tower the set of bleachers. The stadium field of… a school. “What the hell are the lights doing on…?” Alice asks. They were both aware that the branches of electricity were slowly dwindling wherever they go. In fact, this is the only other time Alice saw bright lights. Their increasing interest, and curiosity, made them run toward the gigantic building they were eyeing from the distance. The music, though still buzzing, was becoming increasingly louder. The new discovery sparked some excitement in Julius, at first; they were headed for a gigantic building with promise of electricity. He could only imagine what was inside. Alice, on the other hand, was worried; worried at the threat of walkers. She was sure they were headed the same direction. But she couldn’t help her curiosity. They both felt the relief of good lighting, after hours, maybe even days, in the darkness. They felt confident as they approached the building, but it was mostly mixed with doubts. The music was also becoming even clearer. It was some kind of anthem, performed by a marching band. The static that accompanied it told them it was recorded. Alice thinks it may be the anthem of the school. “''This has been a performance by the James Benjamin High School Lightning Band…''” The sudden ring of a man’s announcing voice makes them both nearly flinch. “''… proud supporters of the Benjamin High Titans!” They both look at each other, out of shock, as they finally touched cement. They slow down to a walk once they can clearly see doors. The chilly night, coupled by the clear, open field of grass, the field lights, and the overall high school feel made Julius feel somehow nostalgic. If anything was going to break him out of his trance, it would’ve been the sight of walkers. “Why is this place alive?” is what he asks, a sudden surge of energy filling him in. The music was definitely helping. Alice was starting to see it just from looking at him. “Where the hell did they get this electricity?” She was looking around, as they were approaching the inner-most areas. They were forced to stop, near an archway, upon hearing echoes of tapping on the pavement. “—still back there! Sh—she’s still fucking back there—I saw—” Two people suddenly appear in front of them, halting their running. Alice and Julius were even more frozen than before. The two strangers in front of them were clearly separated by the jackets they wore; the girl wore a bright-red one, while the guy’s was green. “She was—still there—stuck—” The girl with the red jacket keeps pointing back. Her companion, a young, bald, dark-skinned gentleman looked at where she pointed. “Probably—in th—” She locks eyes with Alice as soon as she sees them. Her companion, still looking at the distance she pointed, had a delayed response. “People—” she says, astonished. “You guys are—are people…” She adjusts her glasses, to see if she was out of her mind. ---- “Cara—j-just… Cara.” She was sitting against the archway, looking eagerly at both Julius and Alice. Her lack of energy coupled by her worried look told them she wasn’t trouble. She turns to the green-jacket man, as if she was communicating something. “… Leo,” he finally says, in a near-mutter. The girl named Cara blinks a few more times, then huddles her folded knees to her chest. Her small stature and pitchy voice tells them that she’s a teenager, and a probable student of this school. “So…” she starts, adjusting her glasses, and brushing strands of her dark, tied hair to the back of her ears. “Where did you guys come from…?” Julius and Alice shyly look at each other, then behind them. “Um… from the other end of that fence,” Alice replies, pointing to it with her thumb. Cara nods, while she does a quick scan of what the two strangers in front of her held. She notices Leo looking at her, and stands right back up. “We’re gonna go now—” Leo urges, his eyes impatiently looking at the other end of the fence. “—c’mon—” “W-wait. Wait.” She gives Leo a good, long stare before looking at the pair. “The school’s been overrun. There…” She looks behind her a few times to make her doubt evident. “… we left some people back.” “They ain’t gonna save them, Cara—” Leo adds, stepping up front. “Look, we don’t wanna trouble you—” “They were our friends. We… we left them back to look for help…” Cara stuffs her hands onto the pockets of her jacket, and looks away for a brief second. “Y-you guys might be our only hope…” “He ''does exist, Cara—” Leo interrupts. “And what if he doesn’t, Leo?!” she replies, in a fiercer manner. “What if we’re leaving them to their deaths?!” She faces Leo this time, her back now facing them. “They might be swarmed down there—M-Marina might be getting ripped apart right now—” Leo sternly holds his ground. “We follow Herbert’s plan—” “''Fuck'' Herbert’s plan! We have help right now... we’re gonna do this ourselves—” Leo looks at the pair they’ve just met, hoping to see if they’re on his side. They were unreadable. “We’re going to look for him,” he continues, his tone similar. “It’s our last fuckin’ hope. We don’t have to get them into this mess—” Cara quickly turns to them after glancing them a few times. “She turned up about a few weeks ago—she said she came from another group, but she had to move around—she helped us out—” Leo steps beside her and grabs her arm. “We don’t wanna bother you—t-this isn’t your problem…” he interrupts. Cara tries to tear away, but his grip is too strong. “We’re not going to find him—h-he’s a fucking myth…” she weakly mutters. Julius and Alice look to each other, completely speechless. It was all happening too soon. They’re being asked to risk their lives for stranded people. Julius’s look alone gave her some doubts, but she knew what she had to say. “We-we’re sorry—” Alice replies. “We just…” Cara loosens up, her look of desperation dropping to dejection. Leo lets his grip go. “Look—you guys can’t—can’t stay here. We’ve attracted enough attention already. I suggest you guys get out of here—” He looks at Cara once more, and nearly pauses just from her expression before facing them again. “—don’t try to save them. They know what they need to do.” He grabs Cara by the arm again and now tugs it, walking around Julius’s side, toward the grass field. Cara gives them a dejected look as she forcefully passes by them. Julius and Alice watch them leave, without a word of goodbye. Cara faces them one last time, her look a mix of blankness, with a hint of fear, beads of sweat in her forehead. “Her name’s Marina,” she shouts, as her legs brush against the grass. “Y-you can’t miss her blue hoodie—she’s stuck, somewhere in the first floor, near the cafeteria—” ---- “Hear anything?” Julius asks; he looks to Alice, who had her left ear pressed against a double doors. Julius knows this is the place; he can see rows upon rows of outdoor cafeteria tables in front of him while he leaned against the doors’ stone wall. Alice pauses a few more seconds, her look concentrated. “Um… no,” she finally replies. She grabs the sledgehammer resting against one of the doors. “Sure about this?” she asks. Julius stops leaning and nods. Alice pulls on the knob of the blue door, expecting the worst. She holds it for a few seconds, while Julius steps beside her to see what she was looking at. A wide hall, with shiny, tiled floors, almost shrouded in darkness, if not for the extremely weak light at the end of the hall. Alice leans against the opened door while she swings her hammer onto her left hand. Just as she feared, there were silhouettes of standing figures at the sides. Quiet walkers, but not for long. -------- A janitor’s closet. Maybe the last place she’ll ever spend her time in, if the walkers don’t get her. She leans against the wooden door, adamant that she’ll be able to hold it down for as long as possible. But all of this pondering has deduced her to a seated position, lost in a slur of ideas that can help her get out of this jam. She taps the one and only pocket of her oversized hoodie, feeling the metal touch of what might just be her only salvation. She grips the handle, and pulls it out. She brandishes it in front of her eyes. It was a revolver, one she found not too long ago from a dead cop. Judging from the intact amount of bullets, that cop didn’t opt out with this gun. She’s practiced with this gun numerous times, but she only fired two shots. She’s scavenged more bullets for it than she could possibly need if she keeps it up at this rate. But the bullets aren’t even with her. They’re upstairs, inside her backpack. The only item she’d take if a “code red” like this would occur. But she never even had time to grab anything. Just whatever was in her pockets. She sighs, thinks of a different topic, and pockets her firearm. This was starting to become hopeless. She looks up, leaning her head against the door behind her. The lighting of this room was weak, but it was better than nothing. She eyes a bunch of spray bottles placed on the top right corner. Then half a gray rag hanging just below it. Then the yellow floor sign, and a gray bucket right next to it. Run-of-the-mill janitorial equipment. It was like impulse. She picks herself up, brushes the backside of her sweater, and turns around. She can probably slip by the walkers outside easily. Just don’t let them form a barrier, like how she always observed. Her gun will be there, just in case, and her accuracy will be put to the test. “Just don’t crap out,” she mutters, feeling the knob. She can’t shake the feeling that everything will absolutely go wrong. But impulse tells her it’ll be alright. She tightly grips the knob, sighs, then pushes it open. But before she can even exit, somebody tackles and pushes her back into the room. ---- The stranger didn’t seem interested in talking to her; she only glanced at her a few times before getting ready to go back out again. “Just… run, don’t look back, and follow me,” she asks. She responds with a nod. She knows this stranger was looking to help; she hasn’t bashed her head in it with that sledgehammer on her hand. She steps right behind her, getting ready. “Okay…” the stranger sighs, trying to get a quick breather. “Three, two…” She quickly opens the door, and darts out. She doesn’t look back, and closely follows her. -------- Alice approaches every walker she can and fights it, hoping for the girl with the blue hoodie to just keep moving. And she does; Alice didn’t even need to say where the exit door was. She tries to trail her, as she continuously moves fast, almost disappearing from her view. The bright color of her hoodie is what distinguished her from all the walkers shrouded in bad lighting. She ignores each and every walker she passes by, following the only light source they had, which came from the exit. She loses sight of the girl, instead seeing a field of heads that continue to surround her. She was afraid this was going to happen. She looks around her to do a quick evaluation, but was forced to stop when a walker came in too close. Each time she fended off a walker, the space around her gets smaller. Her arms start to ache. Her fingers were getting numb. She turns around toward the source of light, and continues to swing, but she couldn’t grip it any longer; she accidentally flings the hammer above a few of their heads, out of reach. The sound of contact it made with the floor made her cringe. She grabs hold of the next walker, catching it by the neck. She uses it as a makeshift barrier between her and the dome of walkers that continue to surround her, spinning it around whoever got close. She lost all her options about five seconds ago. All that’s left for her is to be food. But not tonight. A shot is fired as she was going to make another turn toward the light source, seeing a walker’s head explode in a gush of blood. She catches a glimpse of her silhouette, edging closer. She throws her barrier aside, and sees another walker fall after two shots, and another after one. She sees her hand reaching out toward her, and takes it without hesitation. The girl pulls her out, over a few corpses, and sees the light. She could finally see the girl that almost got her killed, but made up for it by saving her. Black hair, flowing to her shoulders. Exhaustion evident in her look, but still pretty. She was as young as a teenager. Alice eyes her sledgehammer and grabs it as she passes by, running toward the exit. ---- Category:Apocalypse Life Issues Category:Issues Category:Apocalypse Life Category:KnowledgeProspector Stories